London Marathon 2010: heartache for David Weir as Josh Cassidy takes wheelchair title

Two first-timers secured London Wheelchair Marathon titles, Canadian Josh
Cassidy and Japan's Wakako Tsuchida, but there was heartache for the leading
two British Paralympic racers on this most challenging of wheelchair
circuits.

Victorious: Josh Cassidy and Wakako Tsuchida were the first of the wheelchair athletes to cross the linePhoto: ACTION IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES

By Gareth A Davies

1:36PM BST 25 Apr 2010

David Weir, the Paralympic 1500m champion, who races both track and road marathons with equal aplomb was denied a fifth London Marathon title, in spite of being four minutes ahead at one point, after two flat tyres enabled Cassidy to overhaul him on The Embankment.

For Cassidy, who finished in one hour 35 minutes, 21 seconds, it was the first major championship victory of his career.

Weir, from West London, having lost in a sprint finish to Australian Kurt Fearnley last year, had shown pinpoint planning and a perfect strategy in the slippery conditions, breaking away from the leading pack just before the 12-mile mark, working hard over Tower Bridge, to build up a minute’s lead at one point.

Stronger in the final stages of this course, annually a sprint along The Embankment and into The Mall, Weir looked to have secured the route to becoming a quintuple champion in the world’s richest wheelchair marathon, which Australian Fearnley described this week as “the most intense wheelchair marathon race outside the Paralympic Games.”

Having dominated from the halfway mark, breaking free of Japan's Kota Hokinoue, the lack of a chasing pack with the field split – a group of racers can often use a slipstream formation to catch a breakaway leader, as is done in cycling - Weir might have thought he was home and dry. Yet the double puncture followed.

“I’m obviously disappointed. I had a front puncture around 15 miles, which I could handle, and then at around 20 miles my left tyre gave up as well, which makes it almost impossible to race. I was trying my hardest, but it’s like doing another 20 miles on top. I had a great lead, three or four minutes in front, and normally you’d stop. I only kept going because I was so far ahead,” said Weir, who was sporting a new Draft chair built with the latest racing technology for this race.

Weir was caught by Canadian Cassidy on the Embankment, and then overtaken by Marcel Hug of Switzerland, who finished in second place. Ironically, Cassidy has been training intensively with Weir this year, the British racer having warned this week that the Canadian was a coming force. “I caught up to Dave in the last kilometre or so, he was slowing down, obviously with the punctures, but he’s a great athlete. I had to keep on the rain gloves, but I couldn’t believe how windy it was out there.”

In the women’s race, Wakako – the first wheelchair athlete to win the Boston and London marathons within a week - and Switzerland’s Sandra Graf edged out defending champion Amanda McGrory in a sprint finish, but Britain's

Shelley Woods, who had led earlier in the race, dropped out of contention before the final stages. Woods, like Weir, suffered a puncture at 21 miles, but the Blackpool athlete, who won the London title in 2007, pushed all the way to the finish line, a feat which was reflected in her painfully slow last five miles, giving her a finish time of 2hrs 45:40, 53 minutes behind the winner. Woods insisted getting over the line was important to her, even with the flat. She was deeply disappointed. “My winter training went brilliantly, New York went really well, so it’s disappointing not to be able to show what I could do in my home marathon.”